by Cavan Scott
Korda sprinted from the bridge, but by the time he’d reached the ruined stall, the children were gone.
“Quickly!” Lina shouted as they raced through the parked spaceships.
“No kidding,” Milo replied, carrying Morq in his arms. CR-8R followed behind, steam smoking out of his overworked repulsorlift projectors.
The Whisper Bird was up ahead. Lina fished out her datapad, hitting the control that would open the loading ramp. Behind them, Korda was catching up, running surprisingly fast for such a large man.
“We’ll never make it,” Milo gasped. Korda had almost reached them. Ahead, the ramp was down and the Bird’s newly repaired engines automatically powered up.
Suddenly, a figure appeared in front of them, bobbing about on his floating saucer.
“Hey!” Nazgorigan shouted. “That’s the lizard that stole my spray!”
“Sorry, can’t stop now!” Lina yelled as they dodged around the angry con artist. Behind them, Korda didn’t have time to react and slammed into Nazgorigan, knocking the alien from his saucer. The Imperial officer and the Jablogian rolled along the ground, a tangle of arms and legs.
It was the chance the children needed. They charged up the ramp. CR-8R brought up the rear as Korda tried to untangle himself from the plump alien.
“How soon can we take off?” Milo asked as they ran into the cockpit. Lina threw herself into the pilot’s seat and started flicking switches.
“Already disengaging the landing gear,” Lina replied.
CR-8R pulled himself into the copilot’s position, linking up to the navicomputer while trying to fix his speakers at the same time.
“Hold on!” Lina cried as she pulled back on the control stick.
“Get off me!” Korda snarled, kicking Nazgorigan away. Korda sprang to his feet, but it was too late. The ground vibrated as the Whisper Bird’s engines fired, blasting the ship into the sky.
“No!” Korda roared angrily. “Vader will have my head for this!”
He couldn’t let the children get away. The captain snatched the communicator from his belt.
“Korda to Harbor Control. Enemy ship on escape vector. Form a blockade!”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Milo asked as Morq trembled almost as much as the engines.
“What?” Lina snapped.
“The space station that’s up there, and all those ships,” Milo pointed out. “I bet they don’t think we’re Starstormer One anymore.”
Lina jumped out of the pilot’s seat. “Then let’s find out if they know we’re coming. Take the controls!”
Milo blinked. “Me? Really?”
Lina moved to the rear control station. “You managed to steer a boat, Lo-Bro. The Bird should be a piece of cake.”
Milo froze, overwhelmed. Lina grabbed his hand. “You can do this. You saved me. You saved all of us.”
“You sort of helped save yourself,” Milo admitted.
“That just means that we’re a great team, right?” Lina insisted.
Milo broke into a grin and took his sister’s place behind the control stick.
“So what are you planning on doing?” CR-8R said, his voice crackling.
“You’ve got your vocabulator working,” Lina said, accessing the ship’s communication array. “Pity.”
“Well, excuse me for wondering how we’re not going to be blasted into space dust!” the droid complained.
Lina worked the controls as Milo launched them higher into Thune’s atmosphere. “Dad used to listen to official channels to pick up tips for new planets to explore. If I can just find the Imperial frequencies…”
The computer made an unhelpful sound.
“I can’t do it,” Lina groaned, trying again. “I thought it would be easy, but—”
“It is if you know how,” CR-8R insisted. “Let me do it.”
The droid extended another probe into the navicom. “Accessing comms channels.”
Voices started to babble over the cockpit speakers, Imperial forces communicating across space.
“Enemy ship approaching.”
“Initiate defence grid gamma.”
“Maximum alert. Fighters scramble.”
“What are we going to do?” Milo asked, looking back at his sister. For once, she didn’t have an answer.
“I have an idea,” Crater said. “If I track the fleet’s communication relays, I can triangulate their positions.”
“I have no idea what you just said,” Milo admitted, “but it sounded impressive.”
“It is,” Lina said, realizing what CR-8R was suggesting. “Crater can work out where the ships are located from their transmissions and find a gap in the blockade big enough for us to fly through! It’s genius!”
“I have my moments,” CR-8R said, making his calculations as the transmissions kept spilling out of the speakers.
“Time to intercept. One minute forty-seven.”
“Do you have them? Repeat: do you have them?”
“…remember, you can resist the Empire. For your families, your freedom, your very future…”
“Wait,” Milo said. “What was that last one?”
“It doesn’t sound like the Empire.” Lina checked the transmissions. “It’s not even an official Imperial frequency.”
“What do you mean?” Milo asked, confused.
“It’s—I don’t know—piggybacking on the official channels,” Lina replied uncertainly.
“Like a secret message?” Milo asked.
“Exactly. It’s coming from somewhere back in Wild Space,” Lina reported.
“But if they’re talking about resisting the Empire—” Milo started.
“They might be able to help us,” Lina finished. “Crater, can you locate the source of the secret message?”
“I’m trying,” the droid replied.
“We won’t need anyone’s help if we can’t get past those ships,” Milo reminded them. “Do you have all their positions?”
Lina pressed a button. “Transferring them to the navicomputer now.”
The Whisper Bird burst out of the clouds and soared up toward open space. Milo looked at the computer readout. Red dots appeared in a grid pattern, each one representing a different ship.
“There’s an awful lot of them,” he groaned.
“But there’s no going back now,” Lina said. “We’ve picked up two fighters.”
“Where?” Milo asked.
“Right behind us! Look!” Lina cried.
Milo followed her gaze to the display screen showing the feed from the Bird’s rear sensors. Two TIE fighters had burst through the clouds and were gaining on them with every passing second.
He swallowed hard. “They’re really fast, aren’t they?”
“I think I’ve located the source of the transmission,” CR-8R reported. “The planet Xirl, near the Kalidorn system.”
“That’s great, but how do we get away?” Milo said.
Ahead of them, the Imperial ships had formed a blockade. Behind them, the TIE fighters were locking their weapons on to the ship.
This time, there really was no escape.
ON THE GROUND, Korda ran into his waiting shuttle. The pilot turned to greet him, his mouth dropping open.
“Captain, what happened to your face?” the pilot asked.
“Never mind that,” Korda wheezed. He was finding it hard to breathe as wart-hornet venom ravaged his body. “Prepare an emergency takeoff. Get us up to the blockade. Now!”
As the pilot prepared for launch, an alarm sounded from the communication console. Korda’s heart was already racing, but his pulse quickened even more when he realized who was trying to contact him.
Dropping into a chair, he accepted the call.
A hologram of an imposing figure wearing a black helmet shimmered into life in front of him.
“Lord Vader,” Korda rasped. “How may I be of service?”
“You can tell me that you have those maps,” the masked figure rumbled.
“Soon, my lord,” Korda replied. “We have formed a blockade, but the children—”
“Children?” Vader snapped. “You’re being evaded by children?”
“We have them, sir,” Korda said. “They won’t get away.”
“Make sure that they don’t,” Vader commanded, and the holo-transmission ended.
Korda fell back in his seat. He felt sick to his stomach, and it had nothing to do with the venom running through his system.
Sweating, he looked through the viewport. If this didn’t work, he was finished.
“There!” Lina said, pointing at the dots on the screen. “There’s a gap.”
“Barely,” Milo said, although he adjusted the Bird’s flight pattern toward it just in case. “Even if we could make it through there, the ships will be able to block our path.”
Lina thought quickly. “Not if we jump to hyperspace.”
“When?” Milo asked.
“Now!” Lina replied.
“But we’re still in Thune’s atmosphere,” Milo protested.
“Mistress Lina,” CR-8R chimed in. “As you know, the hyperdrive engines won’t fire within the gravitational pull of a planet. The safety protocols will activate.”
“Not if we turn them off,” Lina pointed out.
CR-8R’s head snapped around so fast that Milo thought it might explode. “You can’t do that!”
Lina smiled. “Actually, I can. When I got the main generator working, I had to bypass the safety cutouts. We could do the same for the jump to lightspeed, stop the computer switching the engines off. It’s simple.”
“But highly dangerous!” the droid added.
“Only if we blow up,” Lina said.
“Is that possible?” Milo asked.
“Either that or the ship falls apart in hyperspace,” CR-8R said.
The two children looked at each other.
“Then we better try it,” Milo finally said.
“What?” CR-8R screamed.
Energy bolts screamed past the Whisper Bird, centimeters from the ship’s hull.
“That was the TIE fighters,” Milo said. “They’re firing warning shots.”
“We have an incoming message,” CR-8R reported huffily.
“Let’s hear it,” Lina said.
Captain Korda’s voice wheezed over the speakers. “There’s nowhere left to run! Surrender and I’ll let you live!”
Milo killed the comlink. “Do we trust him?”
“The only person I trust is you,” Lina told him.
Morq let out a whine of protest. “And the monkey-lizard.”
“How nice,” CR-8R said sarcastically.
Milo looked at the approaching blockade of Imperial ships. Freedom lay on the other side, and their parents, somewhere out there.
He took a deep, steadying breath. “We’ll only have one chance at this. Let’s make it count.”
“Are you sure?” Lina asked.
“No!” CR-8R insisted.
“Do it!” Milo said.
Lina went back to the controls. She accessed the ship’s power systems, giving commands that usually the computer would never process. There was a warning beep, and she nodded.
“Done,” Lina reported. “We can jump whenever you’re ready.”
“There’s no time like the present,” Milo said, grabbing the hyperdrive lever. Before he could change his mind, he pulled it back hard.
The Whisper Bird jumped into hyperspace, blasting straight through the blockade. Behind them, the TIE fighter pilots were shocked, crashing straight into the other Imperial ships. They exploded on impact.
In his shuttle, Captain Korda stared at the orange flames. “No!” he screamed.
Against all odds, the Graf children had escaped. But where were they heading?
TO BE CONTINUED IN
STAR WARS
ADVENTURES IN WILD SPACE
Book One: THE NEST